Gib Hedstrom
Gilbert (Gib) Hedstrom is widely recognized as a trusted advisor to CEOs and boards on climate and sustainability issues. He has reported directly to full boards and board committees of Fortune 500 companies on over 70 occasions, often meeting with outside directors in executive sessions.
Gib’s latest book, Navigating Sustainable Growth: A Roadmap for Boards and Corporate Leaders (De Gruyter Brill, July 2025) provides research on enhancing board fluency and over 300 corporate best practices. The book also contains The Climate Story, an 8-step summary to help busy executives connect the dots, understand the recent acceleration, and make smart business decisions over the next five years.
The November/December 2025 issue of The Corporate Board will feature Gib’s latest, titled The Board Owns Sustainable Growth. In January 2025, as the California fires raged, Directors & Boards published Gib’s article Climate and Sustainability for Boards. The cover story of NACD’s Fall 2022 issue of Directorship featured an article by Gib and Paul Camuti titled Transforming Board ESG Oversight.
Gib’s deep experience with Fortune 500 boards led to his creation of ESG NavigatorTM at the request of board members in 1997. Today, ESG Navigator is the leading global ESG benchmarking and strategic planning platform – endorsed by The Conference Board.
After starting his career as a finance trainee at GE, Gib spent 20 years at Arthur D. Little. He led the worldwide growth of environmental auditing with a team of 60 conducing audits and training for hundreds of large energy, materials, resources, and industrial companies (among others). Later, as Vice President and Managing Director, he led the global sustainability practice. Gib authored many of the first third-party certifications of external sustainability reports. He was a founding author of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) 1997-1999. During the late 1990s, Gib advised Shell’s CEO and leadership team on the long-term value of sustainability and helped a petrochemical company launch a billion dollar “sustainable” business. Gib founded Hedstrom Associates in 2004, providing business consulting and executive counsel on sustainable growth.
Gib frequently speaks about business risks and opportunities related to sustainable growth.
Examples of recent activity include:
- Providing independent ESG governance and strategy support to corporate CEOs and boards. This typically involves reviewing governance structures and charters; facilitating meetings; and providing advice.
- Leading the National Association of Corporate Directors’ (NACD’s) Virtual Briefing Desk training course on “Sustainability Oversight: Cutting Through the Noise.”
- Launching, recruiting, and directing The Conference Board’s two Sustainability Councils (collectively ~50 chief sustainability officers) from 2012 to 2018. One council focuses on risk; the other focuses on growth.
Gib earned his MBA (corporate strategy) and MS (sustainability) from the University of Michigan and a BA in economics and geology from Hamilton College. He has served on the board of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, University of Michigan, as well as several local non-profit boards.
